Stefan Didak: The FDA dropping its deeming regulations has caused a full stop on continued innovation

Stefan Didak is the president and founder of NotBlowingSmoke.org. Stefan is always keen for some comments. He is sharing with the Vaping Post his thoughts on the year 2016 and his expectations for 2017.

Vaping Post: Now we are in 2017, what do you retain from the year 2016?

“the FDA dropping its deeming regulations (…)has caused a lot of confusion, uncertainty, but most of all a full stop on continued innovation” -S. Didak

Stefan Didak: I think the most significant event in vaping in 2016 was the FDA dropping its deeming regulations and starting the ticking clock on all the steps industry stakeholders need to take in order to be compliant. This is, of course, not a positive event, but it is the one thing that happened in 2016 that had the most impact and has caused a lot of confusion, uncertainty, but most of all a full stop on continued innovation for the product category.

Vaping Post: What would be your expectations for this year?

Stefan Didak: For 2017 I sincerely hope that ongoing efforts in many of the different States will be successful and that they will be ready to take on the upcoming legislative seasons as I’m expecting a lot of States will be pushing for tax bills by including vapor products under their tobacco laws while pointing to the Federal “deeming” as a reason to do so.